For a Fatherless Son
You will be aware of an absence, presently, Growing beside you, like a tree, A death tree, color gone, an Australian gum tree --- Balding, gelded by lightning--an illusion, And a sky like a pig's backside, an utter lack of attention. But right now you are dumb. And I love your stupidity, The blind mirror of it. I look in And find no face but my own, and you think that's funny. It is good for me To have you grab my nose, a ladder rung. One day you may touch what's wrong --- The small skulls, the smashed blue hills, the godawful hush. Till then your smiles are found money.
-Sylvia Plath

I though it interesting how Plath would write this poem maybe for 2 reasons. One she didn't have her own father growing up, and now she is raising her children without a father and later on without even a herself, or a mother.